


Battle Couple

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Armor, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 13:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10536993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Rey is not happy with the ridiculous armor that's apparently "appropriate for women." Blacksmith!Finn is happy to help.This is all the fault of the Star Wars Writing Alliance.Many thanks to starbirdrampant for the beta.





	

“What - what - what _is_ this crap?” Rey snarls, tossing the offending armor down and whirling to glare at her chief advisor.

“This is the armor for women, my lady,” Lord Hux says. Rey can _see_ the smirk on his smarmy face, even if he’s trying hard to look innocent and loyal.

“This is the armor for people who won’t survive a single battle,” Rey snaps, and then takes a good look at Hux’s badly hidden sneer and scowls darkly. “Get out,” she orders. “I want privacy.”

“As my lady pleases,” Hux says smoothly, bowing his way out of the room. Rey kicks the heap of so-called armor, sneering at the breastplate with its stupid, worse-than-useless protuberances, and then turns and slaps the wall.

The doorway to her favorite secret passage swings open silently.

Rey stomps down the stairs, still scowling, and kicks open the door at the bottom. The castle blacksmith looks up from his anvil and smiles, and something about that smile makes Rey’s grim mood lift a little. Finn always has this effect on her.

“What’s the matter, Lady Rey?” he asks, raising one eyebrow. Rey wants to wipe the soot-smudge from his cheekbone. She clenches her hands in her skirt instead.

“The armor Hux brought me,” she says, slumping down on the little wooden stool which is always kept clear for her. “It’s flimsy as hell, it’s got _boob-cups_ , and if I wore it into battle I’d be dead inside five minutes.”

“That...isn’t good,” Finn says, frowning. Rey misses his smile. “How does he expect you to lead your knights into battle without decent armor?”

“He expects me to die so he can take the bloody castle over,” Rey says bitterly. “The same way he’s been trying to do for the last five years.”

“Ah,” Finn says, and his brow furrows thoughtfully. “Well. Hell with _that_. He’s not getting rid of you on _my_ watch, Lady Rey. Tell you what. Come on back in...three days. I’ll have something better.”

Rey hops to her feet eagerly. “You will? You can?”

“It’ll be a nice change from plowshares and horseshoes,” Finn says, smiling again. “Trust me, Lady Rey. I’ll make you the finest armor in the land.”

“Of course I trust you,” Rey says instantly. Finn’s smile is brighter than the sun.

*

Three days later, Rey stands on the walls looking out over the enemy army arrayed outside her keep. Hux glances over at her. “Are you still determined to go into battle, my lady?” he asks, clearly trying to suggest that she’s too _cowardly_ to lead her own men into war.

“Of course I am,” Rey snaps. “Have them assemble. I will meet them in the forecourt once I have my armor on.”

Hux’s superior sneer gets wider. Rey wants to slap it off his face, but she whirls on her heel instead, and goes stalking down the stairs and across the courtyard and up again to her rooms, where the stupid armor hangs on a rack. She glares at it for a long moment, then turns away and slips down the secret passageway to the smithy.

Finn is waiting. He beams when he sees her, and reaches out to draw a curtain, which falls away to reveal -

_Two_ suits of absolutely beautiful armor. One is in Rey’s size, and she has no idea how Finn managed to find the time, because every inch of gleaming metal is covered in curling designs of leaves and swords. The other set is larger, plainer, but clearly just as well-made. There is a battlehammer leaning against the wall beside it, and Rey’s favorite glaive, edge as sharp as she’s ever seen it, next to the smaller armor.

“ _Finn,_ ” Rey breathes, astonished and delighted, and Finn ducks his head almost shyly.

“It would be my honor to fight beside you, Lady Rey,” he says quietly.

“I would have no other at my side,” Rey says, heart thumping hard against her ribs. “In battle or - or anywhere.”

Finn’s eyes go wide, and then he glances out of the smithy at the warriors as they line up in the courtyard and squares his shoulders. “Let’s get you armored up, then,” he says firmly. “And then - after the battle -”

“After the battle,” Rey agrees. Finn smiles, and goes gracefully to his knees before her to fit the sabatons and greaves of her shining armor to her legs.

It takes more time than Rey would like for them both to be armored - more time than they really _have_ , honestly - but at last she takes up her glaive in one gauntleted hand and nods firmly to Finn, who claps his own fist to his armored chest with a clang.

And they stride out to war.

*

Battle is - not _fun_ , precisely, because Rey doesn’t like knowing that her people are in danger - but she is _good_ at it. Better than Hux thought she’d be, for certain; but then, he doesn’t know about the hours upon hours she and Finn have spent together, doesn’t know about the sparring bruises her beautiful gowns conceal, doesn’t know a lot of things, really.

He certainly didn’t expect her to have Finn at her back, the two of them an unstoppable juggernaut, Finn’s battlehammer heavy as the wrath of god and Rey’s glaive swift and sure as the lightning, cutting their way through the enemy lines together.

He certainly didn’t expect Finn to _have_ her back, when Hux comes sliding up behind her in the middle of the melee and tries to put a dagger between her ribs. Rey is too busy with the enemies in front of her to notice, but _Finn_ notices, and Rey learns about it when she hears an even-louder-than-usual _crunch_ behind her and whirls to see that Finn has just broken both of Hux’s arms with his battlehammer and is winding up for a blow which will crack Hux’s skull like an egg.

“Leave him alive,” Rey snarls. “I want to see him _hang_.”

“As you wish,” Finn says, and crushes an enemy soldier’s helm instead, and they leave Hux lying in the blood and mud of the battlefield and forge onward, ever onward, towards the enemy command.

Rey takes down the enemy commander herself, while Finn guards her back and her warriors drive the enemy fighters into full retreat, and when the enemy commander is quite dead - most people don’t survive having their head separated from their body, after all - she whirls to find that the battle is over, her warriors stand triumphant, the enemy is fleeing in terror, and Finn is watching her with wide, wondering, sun-bright eyes.

Rey pulls the helmet from her head and Finn does the same and armor makes kissing a lot harder but Finn’s gauntleted hand is curled so gently around her head and her own hands are clinging to the plates covering his broad shoulders and her warriors are cheering and Finn’s smile tastes as sweet as Rey always knew it would.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know. I think I'm blaming BeautifulLights for this one.


End file.
